Current_Issue.tar.gz - There's Chocolate in My Peanut Butter

Some combinations are naturally good together: chocolate and peanut
butter, toast and jam, macaroni and cheese, pickles and ice cream.
Admittedly,
the last one was specifically paired by my wife when she was pregnant, but
the others seem pretty sound. Sometimes unlikely pairs
happen to work really well together too. Open-source applications and the
Microsoft Windows operating system is one such pairing.

Before you burn this issue of Linux Journal as a symbolic gesture rallying
against proprietary operating systems, bear with me for a moment. I'm
suggesting we look past the obvious and into the slightly sneaky territory
of planting seeds of freedom in otherwise proprietary soil. (Yes, that
metaphor made my eyes roll too.) If people start using open-source software
in their Windows environments, what is going to keep them from using Windows in
the long run? I don't think it will be a love for spyware that keeps them.
Cross-platform applications like Firefox, OpenOffice.org and Adobe AIR/Flash
have done more to promote the viability of Linux on the desktop than years
of me talking about it. This month, we focus on cross-platform development,
and for those of us who work in a cross-platform environment, it should be
a welcome topic of discussion.

Reuven M. Lerner starts out this issue with the most popular form of
cross-platform development: the Web. He shows how to test Rails apps
with Shoulda, an interestingly named tool that should help Ruby shine.
Marcel Gagné adds to the idea of “open networks” by showing how to
utilize open standards on the Internet. He walks us through setting up a
Jabber server, which will allow users of any platform to connect and chat.
As a warning, if you connect with Marcel, you'll likely end up chatting
about Wine—or possibly his funny hat.

Kyle Rankin decided to join the world of Twitter this month, and although
there already are many cross-platform Twitter applications, Kyle decided he
needed to have it in his little green-on-black text window. Kyle “Mr
Twitter” Rankin demonstrates how to make Twitter nothing more than another
channel in your IRC client. Deep down, I'm a bit jealous Kyle does most of
his communication via IRC, but don't tell him or he'll be impossible to
work with.

Although Web applications certainly seem to be the current trend in
programming, what if you want a desktop application instead? Mark Obcena
shows us Titanium, an open-source platform Web developers can use to create
desktop applications. Just like their Web counterparts, Titanium
applications allow for cross-platform development.

If Web development isn't your thing, that's perfectly fine too. Mattias
Gaertner demonstrates Lazarus for creating platform-independent code.
Whether you're aiming for native applications on Linux, Windows or OS X,
Lazarus can do it for you. In a similar vein, Johan Thelin tells us about
Qt. Although it's most known for its huge role in KDE development, recent
versions of Qt integrate quite nicely with GTK+ as well. Add to that
cross-platform application support, and Qt continues to be a great development
platform.

Don't worry though; here's the paragraph where I tell you it's okay if you don't
identify with $ISSUE_FOCUS, because we still have a well-rounded magazine
filled with Linux goodies. Mick Bauer dissects Ubuntu's AppArmor and
what it means for the security-minded user. Ibrahim Haddad discusses open-source compliance. It would be nice if everyone followed the rules, but
sometimes the rules are difficult to understand and the procedures for
dealing with them are complicated. Ibrahim helps us out. We also have an
interview with the team that is working on Chrome, which is Google's
cross-platform Web browser. Yes, I realize it's cross-platform, but with
Google's recent announcement of its Chrome OS, Chrome is going to be an
entirely new platform of its own! Like all good platforms, however,
Chrome, of course, will be based on Linux.

So, if you still think open source has no place in a proprietary world or
that cross-platform application development is a bad idea, feel free to
burn this issue. While it's burning, you might want to roast a marshmallow
over the fire and then combine it with chocolate and graham crackers.
That combination definitely works.

Shawn Powers is the Associate Editor for Linux
Journal. He's also the
Gadget Guy for LinuxJournal.com, and he has an interesting collection
of vintage Garfield coffee mugs. Don't let his silly hairdo fool you,
he's a pretty ordinary guy and can be reached via e-mail at
shawn@linuxjournal.com. Or, swing by the #linuxjournal IRC
channel on Freenode.net.

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